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Post by racingteatray on Mar 12, 2024 15:27:06 GMT
I suppose trolling is inevitable with this thread...
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 11, 2024 18:22:40 GMT
I can't believe somebody bought this gorgeous machine new and has owned it for nearly 14 years yet put just 740 miles on the clock. collectingcars.com/for-sale/2010-mercedes-benz-sls-amg-10Perhaps they've been ill? Perhaps they just had a policy of never taking it out in the rain and eventually realised that, in Auchterarder they might wait forever for dry roads...? Whatever the answer, what a shame. If I had a car like this, I'd be driving it everywhere.
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 11, 2024 9:55:22 GMT
Has anybody got any good experience with, or know of, a reliable company that would ship a car to/from Scandinavia?
Thanks
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 11, 2024 9:24:04 GMT
How much is ceramic coating? Decently done? I am tempted for the Macan, which a year in is already looking swirly.
As for the Audi on AT, apart from this not being cabrio season, I am of the view that anything worth more than £8-9k is difficult to shift privately. I didn't even try with the 440i after failing to get even the slightest sniff of interest in my M135i, despite pricing it as the cheapest on AT (notwithstanding it was a 1-owner low-mileage great spec example). I was given to understand that this is because the vast majority of buyers (a) want to buy on finance, (b) want the ability to part-ex and (c) like the security of buying from a stealer...
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 11, 2024 9:17:17 GMT
Well, this particular MINI adventure is over. I don't understand how, but he's managed to damage it badly enough for the insurance company to declare it a write off. Somehow he's got it against a concrete post and panicked and made it a whole lot worse by getting stuck. They have valued it at £7,500 (not bad as I paid £8,200 nearly 12 months ago), so the cost must be that less whatever the remaining value is. I'm amazed it's that bad, but I haven't seen it. He's absolutely gutted, but at least he hasn't put it on its roof in a ditch and there aren't any injuries. He's had a loan car from the repair place for a few days, but as it has been declared a total loss that's been collected immediately and he's on his own. He can walk into work, so not a major issue in the very short term, That's annoying. I imagine his insurance is now going to be horrendous?!
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 11, 2024 9:14:50 GMT
I looked at the XE-S back in 2016 before getting the 440i. It was a fairly recently launched car at the time but I didn't much like the interior and the financing package was woeful - although the optioned-up list price was similar to the 440i, a combination of much higher APR and rather worse GFV meant the monthlies were something like double those of the BMW. These are the sorts of factors which I think get slightly overlooked when journalists discuss why certain cars have been sales successes and others not.
Had the monthlies on the XE been on par with the 440i, I would have been very tempted - I liked the idea of the Jag more than the BMW. Of course, we ended up being delighted with the 440i and might not have proved so delighted with an XE-S, so I can't complain!
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Post by racingteatray on Mar 8, 2024 17:38:44 GMT
To be honest I was quite surprised to learn they were still building the XE.
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R5
Feb 26, 2024 10:17:36 GMT
via mobile
Post by racingteatray on Feb 26, 2024 10:17:36 GMT
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 22, 2024 10:45:30 GMT
Yes the whole "ID" thing is awful.
Agree that if it looked anything like that rendering, it would be rather attractive.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 19, 2024 16:52:09 GMT
Annoying. I always photograph and video every hire car within an inch of its life.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 13, 2024 23:45:28 GMT
I was with AXA on the house insurance on unlimited buildings and that went up to £800 or so from £500. I've got it back to nearly that with Hastings at £1m buildings cover and pretty much the same contents. It does sometimes pay to shop about. Home insurance is a nightmare - the moment you might have anything remotely valuable in terms of contents, especially stuff you want cover for outside the house, the premiums head rapidly for unlocked Range Rover levels of insanity. And policies seem to come in one of two forms: (a) bog-standard; or (b) apparently aimed at Succession-types with valuable art collections in their Belgravia townhouses, with nothing in between. The former is cheap(ish) but inadequate in terms of cover and the latter is bollock-crushingly expensive and completely OTT in terms of cover.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 13, 2024 23:36:02 GMT
I have to say that one of the things I really like about the Macan is how solid it feels - it has that general "hewn from rock" look and feel that Audis used to have in the early 2000s. Little things like the way the doors shut with a sort of expensive-sounding muffled "whumpf".
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 13, 2024 15:16:19 GMT
I remember my sister saying that it's a godsend for dog owners - they had an X-Type estate that had one and she said the beauty of it was that it enabled them to access the boot to take things out or put things in with less risk of their labrador making an unscheduled bid for freedom.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 12, 2024 21:34:57 GMT
No rear glass opening? That'll tick owners off - it's such a handy feature that one wonders why all estate cars don't have it.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 7, 2024 18:11:34 GMT
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 7, 2024 18:07:01 GMT
And lo the £100k electric 5-series estate. It's not winning any design awards by the looks of things.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 5, 2024 13:42:30 GMT
When you look at the market there aren't that many twinair cars around. The overwhelming majority are 1.2s. My brother reckons there's not much in it performance wise and the smaller engine isn't as economical in the real world as the NEDC test figures would have you believe so most buyers just stuck to the 4cyl models. Having had 1.2s as rentals, they do feel different to drive - the Twinair is turbo-charged, so it has a much perkier power delivery, and shaves a couple of seconds off the 0-60 (from 13 secs to 11 secs, or 10 secs if you get the 105bhp Twinair). My wife noticed the difference when she had the 1.2 as a loaner - her remark was "it doesn't move"! That said, the 1.2 is smoother and less demanding (the first two gears on a Twinair are ultra-short), so I think for most people going for a 500, the 1.2 is what one might term "perfectly adequate" - it's a small cheap cute car, and so long as it moves that's fine. Plus, the Twinair is quite a noisy little engine, which appeals to people like us who find the noise characterful, but I think the average 500 buyer preferred the rather more refined nature of the 1.2, which was also cheaper to buy new - the Twinair was given more premium pricing and at least initially had more kit - for example, ours has digital climate control as standard - good luck finding a facelifted 500 with climate control - vanishingly rare.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 4, 2024 20:27:25 GMT
Welcome to the 500 club!
Lounge trim comes with a fixed panoramic roof as standard. An opening glass roof was an option.
I was wondering why your road tax wasn’t zero but then realised it isn’t a Twinair.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 2, 2024 19:47:58 GMT
The Macan averaged 30mpg on a run to East Sussex and back last weekend and says it has averaged 25mpg since new.
As for the Fiat, it does so few miles that you'd need the patience of Job to work it out, and I've never bothered.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 2, 2024 12:43:06 GMT
I didn't even say how much it was Do you use Porsche dealers as well? I guess so, given the car. BMW dealers I always found well priced when I had the 330i, but everything is a lot more money now - we'll find out with the 330e how they fare these days, but I think that's over a year from needing anything! Luckily it's M Sport brakes have clearly been done all round not long ago, is on high 40's miles. I have a new found respect for checking out brake wear on SH cars, though as I said, what can you do about it - trade places often refuse to haggle these days. I've never had to face the famous "M" tax, but the 440i was a remarkably cheap car to run for something with its level of performance - always took it to BMW Battersea (part of Park Lane) for servicing over 50k miles and six years and don't think I ever had a service bill that was higher than middling 300s. In fact the servicing on our Mini Cooper isn't particularly less, despite having half the engine and nearly a third of the power. Porsche will undoubtedly be a different experience but it doesn't require a first service until Jan next year.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 1, 2024 23:32:04 GMT
It’s a lot of car for the money.
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Post by racingteatray on Feb 1, 2024 19:14:09 GMT
I'd have an auto in the Z4 as well. Choosing the auto means you can have shiny green (San Remo) paint with a tan (cognac) interior I hadn’t noticed that until now.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 31, 2024 16:13:40 GMT
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 28, 2024 1:15:38 GMT
Personally I don’t like that colour much but it looks like it has night blue leather, which is rare and rather nice.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 26, 2024 13:22:46 GMT
I looked at it and thought - ah, a Macan that's been to the gym, put on some bulk and also bought some new flashy jewellery for its front and back. But it does look better than I expected. This Macan also incorporates two car trends that annoy me: Why is every generation of car getting wider? The roads are not getting any wider, nor are parking spaces. What is it with the screens in front of the passenger? Is it a "just because we can" gimmick? And of course the prices are eye-watering. Yes, I noticed the width increase. I already struggle with mine through a width restrictor!
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 26, 2024 11:43:04 GMT
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 25, 2024 23:26:11 GMT
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 25, 2024 21:34:40 GMT
I’m still not sure about it, will have to see one properly. I specced up a Turbo without going mad and it was £112k in a foc paint colour. I thought £87k was too much for a Macan when we quite seriously specced up a GTS for Lindsay, another £25k is a lot and like most more expensive EVs, too much for a private buyer. It is a ‘Turbo’ so a better standard spec than the GTS and you can now have Matrix lights (not sure why no HD Matrix) which I’d struggle to buy a car without plus a few other things you’d expect on a car of that price which you couldn’t get in the old Macan. How does a turbo work with an EV? It compresses the marketing hot air into a purer form of bollocks.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 25, 2024 21:32:09 GMT
Looks like a Chinese copy of the real thing. The product of a drunken night fumble between a Macan and a Ora Funky Cat. A "Porscha" Funky Macat perhaps...
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 25, 2024 16:02:27 GMT
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